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Clarification by caretakers

IN their joint press conference on Tuesday, Caretaker Minister for Power Syed Ali Zafar and Minister for Finance and Economic Affairs Dr Shamshad Akhtar gave an honest run down of energy situation and the state of the economy, indirectly dispelling the propaganda being unleashed by some vested interests on these two issues. Their clarifications should end the tendency of giving particular twist to important national issues.
The Minister for Power confirmed that the installed power capacity of the country stand at 28000 MW, a claim made by leaders of the PML (N) government but contested by their rivals and critics. The statement of the Minister substantiates claims that the previous government added over ten thousand megawatts to the system. He also clarified that there was just 2000 MW gap between demand and supply of electricity and the increased load-shedding experienced during initial days of the current month was because of steep fall in hydel power generation due to drop in water level in major reservoirs and technical faults in three power plants which created a shortfall of five thousand megawatts. He also shared good news with people that demand and supply gap during the current months would be almost zero and load-shedding would be totally over when generation would increase next month. This should leave no doubt in the minds of anyone that PML (N) government took solid and practical measures to address the challenge of power shortage and succeeded to a great extent. Problems would be there due to technical reasons, constraints of transmission and distribution system as well as widespread theft in some areas. As for economic condition of the country, Dr Shamshad Akhtar categorically stated that the GDP growth remained very strong as it is broad-based. She said every sector, including agriculture and services made a substantial growth and there was massive investment in the country. She also dispelled the impression that the deteriorating state of economy warrants approaching the IMF again. The assessments of the two Ministers would surely send right message to people of Pakistan that situation on the ground was not bad as portrayed by some circles.